


Undertow

by thewhitebirds



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Gen, Sisters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-06
Updated: 2013-01-06
Packaged: 2017-11-26 02:31:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/645565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewhitebirds/pseuds/thewhitebirds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's hard to remember if you have to fight the current or swim with it to stay alive. Set during <i>Deathly Hallows.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Undertow

 

  
_The foamy wavelets curled up to her white feet, and coiled like serpents about her ankles._   
_She walked out. The water was chill, but she walked on._   
(Kate Chopin, _The Awakening_ )

 

***

**i. the voice of the sea is seductive**

"Do you remember when we went to the beach at Cornwall?" she asked Bellatrix, one week after her sister had crashed unceremoniously back into her neatly ordered life. Maybe, Narcissa thought, she could draw out the Bella-That-Was from the haunted, cruel shell of the woman sitting in front of her.

Bellatrix's gaze softened, and her clenched fists opened to slowly stroke the velvet of the sofa. The fire flickered across her hollow face.

"I think so," she finally replied. "I remember mother telling us the merpeople would snatch us if we went out too far. And didn't you almost drown?"

"I was pretending to be Ophelia," Narcissa said quickly. "And besides, that's not the point of the story."

Her sister's face twisted into a sneer and her eyes took on their customary wild look. "Your stories never have a point, Cissy."

(But there was a point, even if Narcissa couldn't explain it. _The precariously balanced sandcastle. The jewel-like gleam of sun on water. Andromeda, everywhere, laughing and splashing. Three sisters stargazing, sandy ankles intertwined._ )

 

*

The night Lucius was captured at the Ministry, she had the old nightmare about drowning. Heartbroken Ophelia, pushed under the waves and tossed like a rag doll by the current. She woke up at the moment the air ran out, gasping for breath and fighting with the blankets. A moment later, an elf arrived to tell her that the Aurors were outside.

The real terror, she realized later, was not the roar of the waves or the burning in her chest. The real terror was how she had been seconds away from giving up. If you stop fighting for a moment, she knew, the water wraps soft arms around you. Then it becomes hard to remember why you were fighting to begin with.

 

*

"Do you remember the beach?" Bellatrix asked herself. She said the words out loud; even now she was not sure what words were in her head and what words weren't. Her voice still felt scratchy and raw. She coughed.

"Yes," she told herself hoarsely, "You do." There had been weeks of seagulls and postcards and salty air. There had been shells. A big blue sky. But when she closed her eyes and tried to remember it, to _see_ it again, there was only blackness. The room Narcissa had given her was covered in dark, claustrophobic purple velvet. She couldn't breathe. Her hand had been relaxed and it curled again into a fist. Today, she could feel the nails digging into her palm (sometimes, she couldn't even feel that). She exhaled.

Narcissa was silly. There was no point to the story. There was no story. Azkaban had taken everything, but _he_ would give it back.

 

*

The night the Dark Lord returned, torrential rain had nearly flooded Azkaban. Curled up in a corner, she had felt the Mark burn, _glow_ again, a moment of bright heat in the dampness. She could suddenly remember him clearly. She could remember why she was fighting. _He would set them free soon._ It wasn't happy, exactly, but it was certain, and they couldn't take certainty away.

The waves parted; she emerged, lungs filled with air.

 

*

"I have to go," Ted told her, and Andromeda held on to him until he pried her stiff fingers from his shoulders and gently shut the door. He didn't look back, and she pressed her wet, salty face against the window, straining to see him. _It will be safer for both of us_ , he had said. _They won't come after you at all, and I can manage in the woods. It's only for a little while._ If she had been braver or cleverer or _better_ , she would have found a way to stop him.

There was a collection of seashells and driftwood on the mantle; Dora was always finding and adding things every time they went to the beach. And Ted, the packrat, couldn't bear to throw any of it away. But as Andromeda looked at them now, she thought instead of when _she_ had gone to the beach with her sisters. Narcissa had almost drowned, and she still remembered the plunging feeling in her stomach as she had watched the waves push her little sister in.

Narcissa had been fine, of course, but the point of the story was that you couldn't save everyone.

 

*

The night Ted was killed, Andromeda slept well. She dreamed about weeks of salty air and postcards from far away and a flock of seagulls in flight. She woke up, refreshed and hopeful, and walked downstairs in the dim light to make a cup of tea, humming.

Kinglsey's patronus was waiting in the kitchen, and she almost forgot how to breathe.

 

***

**ii. the touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace**

"Do you remember when we went to the beach at Cornwall?" she asked Bellatrix. The dim light and cold drafts of the Forbidden Forest surrounded them. Bella-That-Was had vanished, she knew, but it was a game Narcissa played sometimes. If you were lucky, you could see a spark of her in the new Bellatrix. (Most times, you weren't lucky.)

"You almost drowned," Bellatrix said cruelly. "You've always been weak. In need of rescuing, like your worthless husband, like your son. I thought at least Draco showed promise, but I was wrong." There were no signs that the woman across from her had once been her best friend.

Narcissa said nothing as they watched Harry Potter fall. She placed her hand on his chest and felt a heartbeat, strong and rapid against her fingers. What a miracle to not drown, she thought, when the waves were all around you.

"He is dead," Narcissa announced, and this time she did the rescuing and pulled them back to shore.

 

*

Molly Weasley was an idiot, Bellatrix thought as she rolled over to dodge a hex. A shabby little housewife, trying to take down the best duellist who ever lived? ( _Had she been the best?_ Sometimes, she wasn't sure. When she tried to remember people telling her that, there was just blackness.)

Her words echoed around the cavernous room, and she suddenly felt _alive_ and clear, just like when the Mark had burned. There was a point to the story. There was a story, and this was it. She was exhilarated.

She was laughing as the spell hit her squarely in the chest. She fell backwards into the water and sank gracefully down.

 

*

Andromeda held on to Dora's cold hand until Minerva gently pried her stiff fingers away. _What do you still have when you've lost everything?_ A slow and painful life. A slow and painful death. This is what drowning feels like, she thought. Your air runs out slowly and the pinpricks of pain form in your chest. You fight each second to live, but then you die, and life is laughing at _you_.

 

 

They had always told her that she would regret the decision to leave with Ted, to keep the baby, and she had laughed. You laugh at life, and life laughs back at you. But she had never thought it would come to this. Pieces of her were missing; she could feel the holes in her heart.

 

 

Andromeda lay on the stone floor and sobbed, but she wasn't the only one. The clamoring noise of people in the Great Hall sounded like seagulls. Their screeches sounded like a baby--a _baby_ , she realized. She wiped her eyes and clutched onto the thought of her grandson like a raft.

 

 

 

***

 

 

**iii. the voice of the sea speaks to the soul**

Forgiveness trickled in.

Andromeda wouldn't set foot in Malfoy Manor, so they sat at the scrubbed wooden table in her white kitchen. Teddy slept. Some visits they talked, and others, like today, they sat in silence, trying to ease back into each other's lives after twenty years.

"Do you remember when we went to the beach at Cornwall?" Narcissa asked, as Andromeda stood up to make tea. "We were playing a game and I almost drowned."

"I remember it. But you _didn't_ drown," Andromeda replied. "You held on. That's the point of the story, isn't it? You didn't drown."

(There might have been more to it, Narcissa thought, but she couldn't remember now. _A precariously balanced sandcastle. The gleam of sun on water. Bellatrix, everywhere, laughing and splashing. Three sisters stargazing, sandy ankles intertwined._ It was so long ago.)

"That's the point," Narcissa agreed. They sat together for a long time, and when she finally sipped her tea, it was cold and salty.


End file.
